The Diamond Ranch is located northeast of Chugwater on Richeau Creek. The historical and architectural significance of the Ranch sets it apart from any other ranch in the state of Wyoming. The owner architect, George D. Rainsford, is representative of the many eastern and foreign stockgrowers who came west in the late 1870s to invest their fortunes in the high plains cattle industry. Rainsford was also unique in this group because of his simultaneous architectural contributions both at his own ranch and for his 1880's designs in the city of Cheyenne. In addition, Rainsford set the standard for fine horsebreeding not only in Wyoming but on an international scale, a factor which still influences Wyoming's horse ranching industry. The native stone buildings were utilized as part of a large family owned stock ranch. All buildings are constructed of rock face native stone with simplified ornamentation, a Rainsford trademark.

The Quebec 01 Launch Control Facility, twenty-five miles north of Cheyenne and fifteen and a half miles south of Chugwater, in Laramie County, Wyoming, possesses extraordinary national significance under National Historic Landmark Criterion 1 in the area of Military History, for its association with the deployment and operation of the Minuteman IB, Minuteman III, and Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems during the Cold War (see Location Map and Figure 1). Strategic land-based missile delivery systems, submarine-launched missiles, and manned bombers comprised the US nuclear triad during the Cold War, the 1946-91 military and political standoff between the US and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. From 1965 to 2005, Quebec 01 comprised the launch control facility (later termed a missile alert facility) for a flight of ten nuclear missiles placed in dispersed, hardened, underground concrete launch facilities miles away. As part of the nation’s defense, the missile systems controlled by Quebec 01 preserved the peace by comprising a credible means of retaliation in response to an attack by the Soviet Union. Originally constructed 1963-64 as a launch control facility for the Minuteman I missile, Quebec 01 controlled a flight of ten missiles as part of the 400th Strategic Missile Squadron of the 90th Strategic Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Cheyenne. The facility became operational in 1965 and, over ensuing decades, embodied the operation and evolution of a launch control/missile alert facility that directed increasingly sophisticated weapons systems.

From 1965 to 1986 Quebec 01 served as a launch control facility for the Minuteman missile, the backbone of the US nuclear arsenal. The Minuteman, the nation’s first solid-fueled missile, was equipped with a single warhead equivalent to eighty times the force of the 1945 bomb that devastated Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. Quebec 01, constructed as part of the missile’s deployment, began controlling Minuteman IB missiles in 1965. Located in individual, hardened, underground launch facilities, the Minuteman represented a significant improvement over its Atlas and Titan liquid-fuel predecessors in the US nuclear arsenal. The new missile was smaller, more accurate, less expensive to manufacture, capable of being mass produced, and less expensive to maintain and keep on alert. President John F. Kennedy described the Minuteman as the nation’s “ace in the hole” in its global confrontation with the Soviets.

The Swan Land and Cattle Company was one of the several well-known foreign stock companies which operated in the United States. Located near Chugwater in eastern Wyoming, it was one of the largest cattle companies in the country and operated for over 70 years. Organized in Scotland in 1883, with a capital of $3,000,000, the Swan Land and Cattle Company had over 113,00 head on the books when the severe winter of 1886-1887 struck, reducing the company's herd to about 57,000 in 1887. Following this hard winter, the company went into bankruptcy and reduced its inventory and capital, with its herd cut down to 40,000 in 1893. The company continued to operate until 1904 when it went into the sheep business. At the peak of the company's sheep business in 1911, it ran about 112,000 head. The company continued its operations until 1945 when it began liquidating.